A hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host machine. Each operating system could use the host's processor, memory, and other resources, but the hypervisor controls and allocates only the required resources to each one. This ensures that the operating systems (VMs) do not disrupt each other. The supported hypervisors for Cisco Catalyst 8000V are:

• VMware ESXi: Cisco Catalyst 8000V runs on the VMware ESXi hypervisor, which runs on a x86 hardware containing virtualization extension. To see the VMware requirements and to learn how to install Cisco Catalyst 8000V in the ESXi environment, see Installing in VMware ESXi Environment.

• Red Hat KVM: Cisco Catalyst 8000V also runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

• Public Clouds: Apart from the listed hypervisors, you can also deploy and use Cisco Catalyst 8000V in Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. See the respective public cloud deployment guides for detailed information.

This section specifies the general guidelines you should be aware of before installing a Cisco Catalyst 8000V router.

• You can access the Cisco IOS XE CLI either through the virtual VGA console or the console on the virtual serial port. Select the console from the GRUB mode during the first-time installation or change the console using the Cisco IOS XE platform console command after the router boots. For more information, see Access and Use the GRUB Mode.

• Some hypervisors might not support serial console access. Verify support using your hypervisor documentation.

• For .qcow2 files, the image selected during installation determines the type of console you can select.

• If the hypervisor does not support vNIC Hot Add or Hot Remove, do not make any changes to the VM hardware (memory, CPUs, hard drive size, and so on) while the VM is powered on.

• Although Cisco Catalyst 8000V instances in controller mode support the 4GB memory configuration, Cisco recommends using 8GB of memory for feature-rich and high-scale environments to prevent high memory utilization issues.

• From Cisco IOS XE 17.6.1, you can enable the FIPS mode if the host and VM supports RDRAND or RDSEED, or both instructions. Otherwise, an error message is displayed.

  Note

  Some hypervisors have configuration options or runtime options to block the use of RDSEED or RDRAND, or both in a VM. These options must not be enabled. That is, RDSEED or RDRAND, or both must not be blocked by the hypervisor if you want to enable the FIPS mode.

Before you install Cisco Catalyst 8000V, verify:

• The server hardware is supported by the hypervisor vendor.

  If you're using VMware, verify that the server is listed on the VMware Hardware Compatibility List. See the VMware documentation for more information.

• The I/O devices (for example, FC, iSCSI, SAS) being used are supported by the VM vendor.

• Sufficient RAM is allocated on the server for the VMs and the hypervisor host. If you're using VMware, ensure that the server has enough RAM to support both the VMs and VMware ESXi.

• The hypervisor version is supported by Cisco Catalyst 8000V.

• The correct VM settings for the amount of memory, number of CPUs, and disk size are configured.

• The vNICs are configured using a supported network driver.